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Urban Geography

Chapter 9

When and Why did People Start Living in Cities?

Key Question:

Cities

• City – a conglomeration of people and buildings clustered together to serve as a center of politics, culture, and economics.

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Urban:The buildup of the central city and the suburban realm –

the city and the surrounding environs connected to the city.

The Modern Process of Urbanization –

a rural area can become urbanized quite quickly in the modern world

Shenzhen, China

Shenzhen changed from a fishing village to a major metropolitan area in just 25 years. 25 years ago, all of this land was duck ponds and rice paddies.

Shenzhen, China

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The First Urban Revolution

Agricultural Villages

• Before urbanization, people often clustered in agricultural villages –

a relatively small, egalitarian village, where most of the population was involved in agriculture. About 10,000 years ago, people began living in agricultural villages

The First Urban Revolution

Two components enable the formation of cities:

1. an agricultural surplus

2. social stratification (a leadership class)

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Five Hearths of Urbanization

In each of these hearths, an agricultural surplus and social stratification created the conditions necessary for cities to form and be maintained.

Five Hearths of Urbanization

• Mesopotamia, 3500 BCE• Nile River Valley, 3200 BCE• Indus River Valley, 2200 BCE• Huang He and Wei River Valleys, 1500 BCE• Mesoamerica, 200 BCE

Harappa and Mohenjo-Darowere two of the first cities of the Indus River Valley.

- intricately planned- houses equal in size- no palaces- no monuments

Indus River Valley

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Huang He and Wei River Valleys

The Chinese purposefully planned their cities.- centered on a vertical structure- inner wall built around center- temples and palaces for the leadership class

Terracotta Warriors guarding the tomb of the Chinese Emperor Qin Xi Huang

Mesoamerica

Mayan and Aztec CivilizationsMany ancient cities were theocratic centers where rulers

were deemed to have divine authority and were god-kings.

Mesoamerica

Between 300 and 900 CE, AltunHa, Belize served as a thriving trade and distribution center for the Caribbean merchant canoe traffic.

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Diffusion of Urbanization

The Greek Citiesby 500 BCE, Greeks were highly urbanized. – Network of more than 500 cities and towns– On the mainland and on islands– Each city had an acropolis and an agora

Athens, Greece

the acropolis

the agora

Diffusion of Urbanization

The Roman Citiesa system of cities and small towns, linked together with hundreds of miles of roads and sea routes. – Sites of Roman cities were typically for trade – A Roman city’s Forum combined the acropolis

and agora into one space. – Roman cities had extreme wealth and extreme

poverty (between 1/3 and 2/3s of empire’s population was enslaved)

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Roman Empire

The Roman Forum

Aqueducts in Nimes, France

During the mercantile era, the cities that thrived were embellished by wealthy merchant families, who built ornate mansions, patronized the arts, participated in city governments, and supported the reconstruction of city centers.

Genoa, Italy

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The Second Urban Revolution

The Second Urban Revolution

A large scale movement of people to cities to work in manufacturing. Made possible by:

1. second agricultural revolution that improved food production and created a larger surplus

2. industrialization, which encouraged growth of cities near industrial resources

Industrialized regions of Europe, 1914

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During the second half of the 20th century…

Nature of manufacturing changed and locations changed, too. Many factories have been abandoned, creating “rust belts” out of once-thriving industrial districts.

Duisburg, Germany

Archaeologists have found that the houses in Indus River cities, such as Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, were a uniform size: each house had access to a sewer system, and palaces were absent from the cultural landscape. Derive a theory as to why these conditions were present in these cities that had both a leadership class and a surplus of agricultural goods.

Where are Cities Located and Why?

Key Question:

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Site and Situation

Site* absolute location

of a city* a city’s static

location, often chosen for trade, defense, orreligion.

Situation* relative location of

a city* a city’s place in the

region and the world around it.

Trade areaTrade area – an adjacent

region within which a city’s influence is dominant.

Green Country, Oklahoma

Rank-Size Rule:in a model urban hierarchy, the population of the city or town will be inversely proportional to its rank in the hierarchy.

For example:largest city = 12 million2nd largest = 6 million3rd largest = 4 million4th largest = 3 million

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Primate City

The leading city of a country. The city is disproportionately larger than the rest of the cities in the country.

For example: London, UKMexico City, Mexico Paris, France

- the rank-size rule does not work for a country with a primate city

Central Place TheoryWalter Christaller developed a model to predict how and

where central places in the urban hierarchy (hamlets, villages, towns, and cities) would be functionally and spatially distributed.

Assumed: surface is flat with no physical barrierssoil fertility is the same everywherepopulation and purchasing power are evenly

distributedregion has uniform transportation network from any given place, a good or service could be sold in all directions out to a certain distance

Hexagonal Hinterlands

C = city

T = town

V = village

H = hamlet

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Sketch a map of your city or town and the cities or towns nearby. Make a list of goods and services available in each of these towns. Do the ideas about central places presented in this section of the chapter apply to your region?

How are Cities Organized, and How do they Function?

Key Question:

Urban Morphology

The layout of a city, its physical form an structure.

Berlin, GermanyWith wall (above)

And without wall (right)

What does the urban morphology of the city tell us about the city?

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Functional Zonation

The division of the city into certain regions (zones) for certain purposes (functions).

Cairo, EgyptCentral city (above)

Housing projects (right)

What does the functional zonation of the city tell us about the city?

Zones of the City

• Central business district (CBD)

• Central City (the CBD + older housing zones)

• Suburb (outlying, functionally uniform zone outside of the central city)

Modeling the North American City

• Concentric zone model (Ernest Burgess)

• Sector model (Homer Hoyt)

• Multiple Nuclei Model (Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman)

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Three Classical Models of Urban Structure

Suburban downtowns, often located near key freeway intersections, often with:- office complexes- shopping centers- hotels- restaurants - entertainment

facilities- sports complexes

Edge Cities

Each realm is a separate economic, social and political entity that is linked together to form a larger metro framework.

Urban Realms Model

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Modeling the Cities of the Global Periphery and Semiperiphery

• Latin American City (Griffin-Ford model)

• African City (de Blij model)

• Southeast Asian City (McGee model)

Latin American

City (Griffin-

Ford model)

Disamenity sector – very poorest parts of the cityeg. the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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The African City

(de Blijmodel)

Southeast Asian City (McGee model)

Employing the concepts defined in this section of the chapter, draw a model of the city with which you are most familiar. Label each section of the city accordingly. After reading through the models described in this section, determine which model best corresponds to the model you drew and hypothesize why it is so.

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How do People Make Cities?

Key Question:

Powerful social and cultural forces shape the character of a city and create the cultural landscape of the city.

Making Cities in the Global Periphery and Semiperiphery

- sharp contrast between rich and poor - Often lack zoning laws or enforcement of zoning laws

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Making Cities in the Global Core

• Redlining – financial institutions refusing to lend money in certain neighborhoods.

• Blockbusting – realtors purposefully sell a home at a low price to an African American and then solicit white residents to sell their homes and low prices, to generate “white flight.”

• Gentrification – individuals buy up and rehabilitate houses, raising the housing value in the neighborhood and changing the neighborhood.

• Commercialization – city governments transform a central city to attract residents and tourists. The newly commercialized downtowns often are a stark contrast to the rest of the central city.

Making Cities in the Global Core

Tear-downs – houses that new owners buy with the intention of tearing it down to build a much larger home.

McMansions – large homes, often built to the outer limits of the lot. They are called McMansions because of their super size and their similar look.

Hinsdale, Illinois (25% of houses have been torn down in last 20 years).

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Urban SprawlUnrestricted growth of housing, commercial developments, and roads over large expanses of land, with little concern for urban planning.

Henderson, Nevada

New Urbanism

• Development, urban revitalization, and suburban reforms that create walkable neighborhoods with a diversity of housing and jobs.

– some are concerned over privatization of public spaces– some are concerned that they do nothing to bread down

the social conditions that create social ills of the cities– some believe they work against urban sprawl

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Celebration, Florida

Celebration, Florida

Gated CommunitiesWho are gated communities for?

How do the goals/purposes of gated communities differ across the world?

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Ethnic Neighborhoods

• European City– eg. Muslim neighborhoods in Paris

• Cities of the Periphery and Semiperiphery– eg. Mumbai, India

Mumbai, India

Using the city you sketched in the last “Thinking Geographically” question, consider the concepts and processes introduced in this section of the chapter and explain how people and institutions created this city and the model you sketched.

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What Role do Cities Play in Globalization?

Key Question:

World Cities

Cities that function at the global scale, beyond the reach of the state borders, functioning as the

service centers of the world economy.

Spaces of ConsumptionThe transformation of the city into an entertainment district,

where major corporations encourage the consumption of their goods and services.

For example: Berlin, GermanyNew York City

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Times SquareNew York City

Thinking through the challenges to the state presented in Chapter 8, predict whether and under what circumstances world cities could replace states as the basic and most powerful form of political organization in the world.